Poultry News

Bangladesh Grand parent poultry farm starts operation in June

BANGLADESH - With a target to reduce import dependence on broiler-breeder parent stocks by 20 percent, Bangladesh's first grandparent (GP) poultry farm in Tentulia, Panchagarh hopes to start operation from next week.

Bangladesh Grand parent poultry farm starts operation in June BANGLADESH - With a target to reduce import dependence on broiler-breeder parent stocks by 20 percent, Bangladesh's first grandparent (GP) poultry farm in Tentulia, Panchagarh hopes to start operation from next week.
Aqua Breeders Ltd., set up on 180 bighas of land, targets to produce and market 4,000 pieces of one-day-old broiler-breeder parents daily.

Bangladesh imports 3.5 to 4.0 million pieces of one-day-old broiler-breeder chickens from France, UK, Malaysia, Denmark and the Netherlands spending huge foreign currency, according to official sources.
Gazi S Hossain, an expatriate Bangladeshi and managing director of Aqua Breeders Ltd. said: "From now on our GP farm will be able to meet about 20 per cent of the country's total demand of parents stock."

It will also help the country to save about US$ 2.17 million (Tk 130.2 million) in foreign exchange annually by reducing absolute dependence on imported broiler-breeder chickens for the country's burgeoning poultry sector.
The farm set up with financial support from Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB), Tentulia branch, and EEF unit of Bangladesh Bank and technical supports from the Netherlands will help local broiler-breeder farm owners to escape the hassle of importing parent chickens.

"We will help to reduce the cost, minimise mortality rate and ensure supply of climatised birds," Gazi said.
Dr Arif M Malik, Technical Advisor of Dutch company Hybro, which supports the new GP farm, said: "Hybro species of birds will be produced in this farm in a totally controlled environment. They will be provided controlled food so they can grow 10 times faster than normal ones and lay eggs in time."

He informed that each parent bird lays around 180 eggs in its 65-week life cycle. Aqua Breeders also put in place facilities for producing quality poultry feed inside the farm.

Hybro Bird species were first brought into Bangladesh in 1979 by a company, Eggs and Hens Ltd. Now three other brands of foreign poultry -- Hubbard (France), Aviagen (UK) and Copp (USA and UK) -- are available in the country.

To produce one-day-old parents stock, the farm has been rearing 20,000 pieces of grandparents against its capacity of 30,000 pieces. It will be supportive to meet demands of some 130 one-day-old broiler-breeder farms in the country.

Poultry industry in Bangladesh began its journey formally since mid-70 although a private sector company named 'Eggs and Hens' pioneered modern poultry farming here as early as 1954 in erstwhile East Pakistan.
A medium-sized breeder operation was set up under the aegis of Biman Poultry Complex after independence with an initiative by government. Until the mid-1980s the industry expanded in a slow and restraint manner. It, however, got a momentum when a large number of private companies and NGOs came forward in early 1990s.
At present, concerned sources said, about 150 NGOs extend support to this prospective industry, helping rural people to come out of extreme poverty cycle. The potential of this sector is not even half-utilised in the country, and so there is call for a greater attention, officials said.
To feed the potential industry, 130 hatcheries and 1,60,000 commercial layer farms have been set up throughout the country.

They said there is a wide scope of poultry as present consumption of poultry in Bangladesh is a meagre 1.9 kg per head, compared to 3.9 kg in Pakistan, 33 kg in Malaysia and 14 kg in Thailand.
Gazi observed that people of Bangladesh could not purchase chicken as per their need due to high price. Sometimes, local farm owners could not sell broiler chicken in low price, as they are importing costly parents stock.

"I hope our GP farm will help bring down the price of broiler meat from Tk 70 to Tk 45 per Kg, bringing it within their purchasing capacity. That will be possible because the breeder farms will get locally produced broiler-parents at a reasonable price," he said.